Baroque quarter Koenigstrasse
The Dresden baroque district Königstrasse is an inner-city, historical residential and business district in the baroque architectural style in Dresden's inner Neustadt . In contrast to the numerous reconstructions of the inner old town , most of the buildings here are still preserved Baroque originals.
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location
The Dresden Baroque Quarter is a large, almost isosceles triangle in the heart of the Inner Neustadt. The imaginary legs of the triangle, which radiate out from Albertplatz in the north- east , are Theresienstrasse in the north and Hauptstrasse in the south-west . The central axis of the quarter is the baroque Königstraße . To the east, the district is bordered by Große Meißner Straße and Palaisplatz . Within the quarter, the baroque straight lines are broken up by originally medieval streets. Rähnitzgasse, Heinrichstrasse, Obergraben, An der Dreikönigskirche and Wallgäschen are the last witnesses of medieval street layout in Dresden. Nieritzstrasse, with its Biedermeier backdrop, was not integrated into the district until the end of the 19th century and serves as a link between Theresienstrasse and Königstrasse.
history
Altendresden
The early history of the baroque quarter is closely linked to the history of Altendresden . The formerly independent town at the northern head of today's Augustus Bridge was first mentioned by name in 1350 as "Antiqua Dressdin" and in 1403 was granted town charter. The city, which can be traced back to a Slavic bridgehead settlement, was finally involuntarily incorporated into the Dresden urban area on March 29, 1549 in order to develop Dresden into a more steadfast fortress.
City fire and new planning
On August 6, 1685, a devastating fire broke out in the house of cabinet maker Tobias Edler in Meißner Gasse - today between Blockhaus and Bellevue . 331 houses were destroyed to their foundations, only 18 to 20 houses on the Elbe were spared from the fire. This stroke of fate was also the hour of birth of the new royal city with its planned star-shaped floor plan and the splendid baroque town houses, which were rebuilt according to the ideas of the Saxon elector.
Elector Johann Georg III. and Wolf Caspar von Klengel
Shortly after the devastating city fire, Elector Johann Georg III. the then Oberlandesbaumeister Caspar von Klengel with the new planning of the totally devastated district. Klengel's modern plans, which were far ahead of their time in urban planning, were based on the then very modern Italian-French urban architecture, but met with great resistance from the residents of Altendresden. The ideal Baroque planning provided for a complete redesign of the building plots and thus no longer gave the citizens the chance to rebuild their former houses on the burned-out foundation walls. However, the planning was only slowly turned into reality and so only a third of the new royal city had been realized by 1691.
Friedrich August I of Saxony (August the Strong)
During the tenure of August the Strong , the baroque quarter got its today unmistakable face in the style of the Dresden Baroque . The Elector of Saxony and King of Poland took up Klengel's plans again, he planned and designed the wide avenue Koenigstrasse himself. The building sites on the street were given away. The builders had to adhere to strict guidelines: the size of the houses on the street was not allowed to exceed the Japanese Palace . All houses had to have the same floor height and number. The facades were only allowed to shine in light colors. The buildings had to have courtyards open to the sky.
1945 to 1990
The area to the right of the Elbe was largely spared from the devastating destruction of the bombing night of February 13, 1945 . The quarter suffered damage during the GDR era. Since there were no funds for renovation or restoration, the valuable witnesses of bygone days were simply left to crumble and degenerate into ruins. The desolation of the district should ultimately end in the city's scheduled demolition. It is thanks to individual efforts by the residents of Dresden that individual buildings that had already been provided with blast holes were rescued (e.g. the government , Grosse Meißner Str. 15).
Restoration after the fall of the Wall
In the early 1990s, the Dresden baroque district was badly damaged. Many apartments were no longer habitable. Entire roofs collapsed, the sponge ate its way through the valuable architecture, the houses were simply locked. With a lot of effort and attention to detail, private investors and the public sector transformed the once ailing district into what is now known as the “Dresden Baroque District”. The first to be completed in 1994 was the Lippert House at Königstrasse 5a. In some places where the old could no longer be saved, new facilities such as the Priscopassage or the Königstraße passage were built, which fit harmoniously into the overall picture.
Baroque structure
Due to the strict building specifications of the Saxon rulers, resembling baroque town houses were built along Königstraße and in the side streets, but on closer inspection they differ from each other in their mostly playful details.
The buildings along Königstraße mostly have a rectangular floor plan that is relatively narrow at the front compared to its depth. Along the medieval Rähnitzgasse, the Obergraben and the Heinrichstraße, the floor plan is partly based on the foundations of older buildings, so that they can also have an irregular floor plan. However, these too usually have a front and a rear building with two side houses framing the inner courtyard. Between Königstraße and Rähnitzgasse and between Königstraße and Wallgäßchen the town houses also function as through houses . Through the inner courtyard, you can get to the parallel street of these buildings, which can be an advantage in a narrow inner-city development.
The strict requirements of August the Strong with regard to construction are also clearly visible in the roof structures. Here the lower roof surfaces have a steeper angle than the roof surfaces adjoining them. In this way, there is more living space in the attic without the sloping roof noticeably affecting the floor space. In the Dresden area, these mansard roofs are usually provided with round dormers and occasionally with gable dormers. The name goes back to the French architect François Mansart , who was not the inventor of this type of roof. The architect of the Louvre in Paris , Pierre Lescot , developed and used this roof structure 100 years earlier . The reason to put such a roof on a building is primarily of a purely practical nature. At a time when real estate tax was levied on the number of full storeys, it was possible to save on taxes without having to forego living space, as no taxes were levied on an attic storey.
Furthermore, attempts were made to breathe life into even the simplest facade. Individual central portals with differently designed cartridges and more or less decorated facades with the illusionistically painted mirrors between the rows of windows that are typical of Dresden give each building its individual touch.
The historic town houses, which form an incomparable, 300-year-old urban ensemble in the heart of Dresden, also usually have individual epithets, which refer to their former use or owners or are characterized by part of their facade. With regard to the facade, the cartouches (a decorative frame that frames texts or pictures and is usually found above the entrance portal as a keystone) are usually decisive for the naming.
use
Today the Dresden baroque district Königstraße is a residential and business district in a good inner-city location and with a high-priced range of living space and goods for long-term needs. Small-scale retail is just as available as the various branches of the cultural and creative industries . Good addresses for the hotel industry in Dresden and a number of other service companies are also located here.
District management
The quarter has been run by the Dresden Baroque Quarter Königstraße e. V. “supervised. The members of the association are the property owners and traders in the district. The aim is to establish the Dresden Baroque Quarter according to its special importance as a prominent, high-quality business location and special residential area in Dresden.
literature
- Fritz Löffler : The old Dresden. History of his buildings. Seemann, Leipzig 1999. ISBN 3-363-00007-3
- Lutz Rosenpflanzer: Baroque town houses in Dresden. Verlag der Kunst, Dresden 2002, ISBN 3-364-00382-3
- Gilbert Lupfer, Bernhard Serra, Martin Wörner (eds.): Architectural guide Dresden. Dietrich Reimer Verlag, Berlin 1997
- Stefan Hertzig : The Dresden Bürgerhaus in the time of August the Strong. Society of Historical Neumarkt Dresden e. V., Dresden 2001, ISBN 3-9807739-0-6 .
- Heinz Quinger : Dresden and the surrounding area: history, art and culture of the Saxon capital. DuMont Reiseverlag, 2005
- R. Delau: Anecdotes from 800 years of Dresden. Dresdner Magazin Verlag, Dresden 2005
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Baroque (quarter) with a modern lifestyle! Retrieved April 10, 2014 .